Category Archives: UNITED STATES

The Google Cloud Platform has been validated for compliance with PCI DSS. The standard will enable our customers to hold, process, or exchange cardholder information from any branded credit card on Google Cloud Platform.

About six out of ten Americans plan to purchase gift cards – the top item on consumers’ shopping lists – this year, according to Accenture’s 2014 Holiday Shopping Survey. Boost Mobile Wallet and Sprint Money Express, powered by Wipit, provide consumers an easy way to make payments from their smartphone or prepaid Visa or MasterCard with no credit check or monthly fees.

China UnionPay (CUP) transaction volume continues to explode racking up a stunning estimated 56% increase in 2014, following a solid gain of 48% in 2013. This month UnionPay International, the international business arm of China UnionPay announced special privileges for UnionPay cardholders at 20 global tourist cities and 10 resort islands, providing its customers with discounts of up to 15%.

Nearly 96% of the world’s population is mobile or about 7 billion. The awareness of the value of personal data is growing while solutions to manage usernames and passwords become more cumbersome and the use of biometric data to authenticate access will become more widely implemented.

BitPay has integrated with Xsolla, a well-known billing platform that helps game developers monetize and improve conversion. Big gaming companies like Twitch and Nexon have already started accepting bitcoin as a reliable in-game payment method.

San Francisco-based Revel Systems has secured a $1.2 million grant from Invest Northern Ireland to open a UK sales and operations center in Belfast. The Revel platform includes complete front-end order entry, POS system and payment processing, back-end personnel scheduling, time clock and payroll, inventory management, comprehensive product/menu management and advanced reporting to successfully measure and optimize business performance.

Unisys experts predict the widespread publicity of recent large data breaches at major retailers, U.S. consumers, retailers and financial institutions will not readily embrace the use of chip-embedded credit cards requiring users to enter personal identification numbers when making a transaction.

The latest guesstimate for the U.S. migration to Chip & PIN (EMV) is $9.5 billion and it will take until 2018 to reach a penetration of 80%. This reflects the cost of replacing over one billion insecure magnetic-stripe payment cards, 1.2 million point of sale (POS) card readers and 7 million card reading terminals with the global EMV standard Chip & PIN technology.

Bankrate is acquiring Wallaby Financial. Wallaby’s proprietary CardBase database includes more than 2,400 credit cards offered by over 500 financial institutions and is the ideal companion for every digital wallet solution.